Frederic VandenBergh is professor of sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IFCS-UFRJ) in Brazil.

Frederic knew David Graeber from his work at Yale University and, together with Douglas Porpora, shared David’s interest in Critical about Critical Realism.

They host an open lecture about Critical about Critical Realism and Roy Baskar in Museum of Care reading group.

You can see it here.

“The techno-capitalist world has indeed become an ‘iron cage’, as Max Weber intimated in the final pages of The Protestant Ethic, but precisely because we are going through ‘dark times’ once again, we desperately need to open a little window on the world and let in some light and colours to illuminate our caged existence. …[ I do not]  contest that moral revolt is a precondition of collective action or that moral indignation can fuel social change, but instead of mobilising the ‘passions triste’s (anger, resentment and fear), why not mobilise the ‘passions joyeuses’ (awe, empathy and generosity)? Why not try theorising from the heart (rather than the stomach) and philosophising with the open hand (rather than the closed fist)?”

Except from the Introduction to Frederic VandenBergh’s ‘What’s Critical about Critical Realism’